By Jeremy Morgan
Latin American Herald Tribune staff

CARACAS – President Hugo Chávez invited President Barack Obama of the United Status to join Venezuela’s “socialist revolution,” claiming that this was the only way to get through the world economic crisis.

In a speech in which he defended his revolutionary approach and a string of recent state takeovers or “interventions” of food industry and other companies, Chávez exclaimed: “Come on, Obama, align yourself with us on the way to socialism! Come on, it’s the only way!”

Chávez was speaking at the inauguration of a project to build a steelworks in Bolívar state, and it was difficult to assess just how serious the invitation was, or indeed if it were instead more in the nature of a challenge.

Only days ago, Chávez said he didn’t have any great expectations of Obama’s arrival at the White House heralding a major shift from the Bush Administration in the United States’ approach to Venezuela and Latin America.

On Thursday, Chávez had announced he was “authorizing” President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil to “discuss the Venezuela case” with Obama. But he didn’t sound particularly enthused by that idea, either.

Lula, Chávez explained, had said he would like to talk with the United States president about Venezuela and “given that it’s Lula I gave him the green light in good faith because I think that could be convenient.”

Chávez disclosed this plan at a military parade and he made it clear that letting Lula get involved did not imply any diminishment of Venezuelan independence. Chávez also made it more than plain that any contacts between Caracas and Washington would have to be on the basis of equality between the two.

Seen in this context, Chávez’ curious offer for Obama to join the Bolivarian revolution had the appearance of underlining that he had no intention of even being perceived to be kowtowing to Washington.

“Imagine a socialist revolution in the United States,” he told his audience of steel project workers. “There are no impossibilities. Who’d have thought in 1980 that the Soviet Union would disappear? Nobody, and look what happened, it fell down.”

The capitalist model and “its perverse values” had failed, and it was “lamentable that millions of workers are out in the street, thousands of companies are closing in this crisis that the capitalist world is living in.”

Blaming the United States for starting the global crisis, Chávez insisted once more that the global upheaval wouldn’t weaken Venezuela. The country had a strategy to take forward development processes and neither he nor his revolution would be defeated by the crisis “because this revolution has people.”

Chavez said he had expropriated a number of rice processing plants from a transnational that didn’t want to comply with the regulations. This, apparently, was a reference to Cargill, one of the seven largest grain and cereals companies in the world and the target of a takeover order of a rice plant.

On Thursday, Agriculture and Land Minister Elías Jaua had said representatives from Cargill had been in contact with his office to “express that they’re disposed to collaborate” after the government announced it was “intervening” in a rice plant owned by the company.

Jaua went on to claim that there were sufficient supplies in reserve to guarantee the supply of rice in the country until 2010. As to claims that the government was applying arbitrary measures, he suggested companies should read the law instead of “making a joke of the norms.”

Chávez on Friday also referred to the case of Alimentaciones Polar, reputedly the biggest food industry company in Venezuela, and whose rice processing plant at Calabozo in Guárico state was also the object of a takeover.

During a visit to the plant early Friday morning, Eduardo Samán, nominated as the new Commerce Minister in the cabinet shake-up at mid-week, said the government would “seek” to take over the plant.

In contrast, Chávez’ later remarks indicated that as far as he was concerned, nationalization of the Polar plant was a done deal that was already beyond further discussion.

“Polar seems to be one of these companies that believe they’re bigger than the constitution,” the president declared. “If Polar doesn’t want to comply with the constitution and the laws, it’ll be expropriated.”

The government accuses Polar of not complying with regulations obliging it to commit most of its production to white rice, which is subject to price controls. Polar stands accused of focusing on flavored brands of rice because these are outside the controls and cost twice as much as white rice.

The government has also taken control of a 1,500 hectare eucalyptus plantation run by Smurfit, a company based in Ireland that manages plantations and makes paper and packaging products in Venezuela.

The plantation has been under military control since last Tuesday. It was also said that agricultural workers had been “mobilized” in the states of Guárico and Portuguesa, although in the absence of further information there was no confirmation of this or explanation of what was afoot.

Amid all this, there was an exchange of eccentric barbs between Jaua and Genaro Mendoza, president of the ranchers’ federation, Fedenaga. Jaua had remarked that Mendoza would be “expropriated” if he “made himself comical” to which Mendoza responded that the only comical thing was the government’s fisheries and food policy. The sector was on the verge of going bankrupt, he claimed, because they couldn't produce at the pitiful prices the government mandates.